The 10 Commandments Before Moses

I'm going to start out with a question today. If you went out and asked people in our community, when were the Ten Commandments given, what do you think their answer would be?

Well, let's hope that people know what the Ten Commandments are, right? That's a sad part in some of our society today. They wouldn't know what we're referring to about that. But if they had biblical knowledge, and they had read their Bibles or had any basic knowledge, a common answer we'd probably receive is, well, they were given at Mount Sinai. But is that correct? Is that when they were given? It's kind of a trick question, because in one sense the answer is kind of a yes, more of a no. Because for the Israelites themselves, many of them may have thought this was the origin of the commandments, right? Because for a long time they had lived in captivity in Egypt. They had lost a lot of their ways. They might have known some of God's words. They might have known some of His principles. But in a lot of ways, maybe some of this would have been new to them as God was reintroducing Himself to His people. This is one of those reasons He did give them the commandments in a codified fashion, was to bring it all together. Let there not be any confusion. Let there not be any question on what the commandments of the Lord are. And so He gave them to reteach His people His way. But if we were to look at Scripture, we would see that the commandments were already in place well before Mount Sinai. The answer, as we continue to dive into the subject, and we're going to explore the Ten Commandments prior to Mount Sinai, they were well in effect. The Ten Commandments were well before, again, they arrived at Mount Sinai. God, in His wisdom and understanding of mankind, knew that we would be driven by our own lusts, by our own greeds, as mankind. We'd be driven by our own selfishness, as we've seen. So for our sake, for mankind's sake, He gave us guardrails in which we should live our lives by. He shared instructions for how we could love Him more fully and love our neighbors as we ourselves would want to be treated. This is an important topic to consider, as many in the world want to discredit the commandments and God's laws that He gave to humanity. But it's also an important aspect to consider as one explores the covenants of God.

And this is one of the things I'd like to spend a little bit of time in some of the future sermons here leading up to Passover to dive into some of the different covenants that we see outlined in Scripture and to walk through them and to understand what the covenants represented and which covenant that we are under today. Because the covenants are critical for us to understand as Christians because we are either part of a covenant with God or we're not in a covenant with God. And as a little bit of a spoiler of where we're going to go, you want to be in a covenant with God and we'll explore that in some future weeks. So in our time together, we're going to lay a foundation of sort to build upon in future weeks. And we're going to look and see if we can find examples of God's people following the Ten Commandments prior to Mount Sinai in Scripture. This is going to be more of a survey type of sermon. We don't have the time to go through all of the... we're going to go through all the commandments, but we don't have time to go through every example of the Scriptures in demonstrating these commandments being observed and kept today. We just don't have that much time. But it's also going to be a doctrinal sermon of type because we need to understand these things. This is one of the things that if you look and talk to other people that go to other churches in your community and they see us keep the Sabbath and they're like, well, that was done away with, right? That was part of the Mosaic covenant, Mount Sinai. That's no longer. Christ came and did away with that covenant.

We're part of the new covenant. You'll hear people say that, that, well, you must be an old covenant Christian. I'm a new covenant Christian. We need to be able to defend our faith. We need to be able to defend God's Word and the accuracy of Scripture. So this is an important doctrinal sermon as we continue to go forward and interact with others in our community. Exodus 16 is where we'll begin our journey of reviewing the Ten Commandments before Mount Sinai because in chapter 16, God makes an important statement that will send us on our journey today. Exodus 16 and verse 28.

So if we were to flip ahead, we're not going to do it right now, but if we were to flip ahead to Exodus 19, we would find the account of the Israelites approaching and arriving at Mount Sinai.

And then we know Exodus 20 is where the Ten Commandments are codified or given in order 1 to 10. And so here in Exodus 16, this is prior to their arrival to Mount Sinai. And notice what the Lord said to Moses in verse 28. How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?

If they were first given at Mount Sinai, this would just create a huge statement of confusion to the Israelites. What commandments? What laws? So obviously, before the Israelites made it to Mount Sinai, which again we find in Exodus 19 and more in Exodus 20, God's people already had a knowledge of what was right and wrong according to God's law. The problem with the Israelites is that they had lost their way over the years. They had held on to certain ones. They understood some better than others. And they didn't have all the connections. God was going to give them additional commands that they would follow, sacrificial commands that would be put into place as well.

And so there were already laws. There was already commandments in place. And we'll primarily stay in the Old Testament, but I want to look at a couple New Testament scriptures to set the stage on all and sin. The first is in 1 John 3 and verse 1.

1 John 3 and verse 1.

We're going to look at the Apostle John's writings on this subject and also in just a moment the Apostle Paul's writings on it. But in 1 John 3 verse 1, we see some understanding of what we know about the law and about sin still today. John says, Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.

Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has his hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. So we get the definition of sin here, which is lawlessness. So without laws, one can't be lawless. One can't break these commandments. One can't sin. Is the concept here. Is the understanding that law, the law, is what defines right from wrong. It defines sinful behavior and righteous behavior before God. That's what John is getting at here. Paul makes a similar statement in Romans 7 and verse 7. So towards the beginning of your Bibles a little bit, still in the New Testament, Romans 7 and verse 7.

So breaking into the concept here of what Paul's talking about, he says, what shall we say then?

Is it all sin? Certainly not. So there's no question that the law is not sin. It is not something that is not righteous for us to continue to keep. He says, on the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, you shall not covet. So between the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John, we clearly see how the laws of God define how you and I are to live our lives and what counts as a transgression of God's law and what defines what's the definition of sin for the Christian and for the believer. So a major question we got to ask ourselves again. Did sin exist before Mount Sinai?

Yes, it most definitely did. We see sin in unrighteous behavior time and time again well before the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai. Let's turn to a couple of these instances. Not that we have one. Let's turn to Genesis 13 verse 11. This is not going to be a surprise. There's a lot of scriptures we could turn to to back this up. But again, going with these definitions that we saw with John and with the Apostle John and the Apostle Paul, we have to recognize that if there are sin in the world and the laws would define sin, then the law must be in effect and there must have been laws.

There must have been ways that one would lead and follow their life to be righteous with God. Again, Genesis 13 and we'll look at verse 11. We've looked at this account a couple times in the past year from different angles, but I want to bring out again the understanding that God captures here from a different angle. Again, this is Abraham and his nephew Lot. They are going into the land of plain of Jordan and they're going to have to separate their families because there's a little bit of strife between their workers with the shepherds and with their sheep.

And it says, so we get to this point where they kind of go different directions in verse 11. Then Lot chose for himself all the plains of Jordan and Lot journeyed east, and they separated from each other. Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked, and this is what I want to focus on, and sinful against the Lord.

They were sinful against God. To be against somebody means you have to know them pretty well, right? You have to be against a concept or an idea. You have to wrap your mind around it. You have to look at it from different angles and say, I don't support that. As a joke, I am against the Pittsburgh Steelers Football Club because I'm a Bengals fan, right? I have my own reasons why, and I can account every single why I do not like the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And I know there may be Steelers fans out here, and I'd be happy to tell you why I'm against that, too. So I understand why I have my point of reference and my view, but to understand why you're against something, you have to know what that is that you're against. You have to have a value system. You have to say, there are things I don't like, things that I disagree.

I am against this. To be against God means you have to understand that He exists, that there's a right and wrong way one should live their life, that He's given us morals, that He's given us a compass that we should walk by, truths we should live our lives by, a law, a system of rules, a system to be righteous before Him. So if the men of Sodom were against the Lord, there must have been laws that they did not want to have in their life.

They did not want to be part of what was going on, and their relationship with God, the teachings, the fundamentals, the way that they should live their life. There's a similar statement in Genesis 39 in verse 7. This one from a little bit of a different angle. As you're turning to Genesis 39 in verse 7, we're breaking into the story of Joseph after his brothers had sold him and gotten rid of him, sold him into slavery and captivity, had been hauled off. Fathers told that he was torn up by some crazy animals and he had died.

And here, in part of the challenges that Joseph was dealing with, he was sold into slavery to be one of Potiphar's servants, but he had proven to be trustworthy. He was proven to be able to look over his house and to be given a lot of freedoms to look over Potiphar's house. And here in Genesis 39 in verse 7, we break into the story here of Joseph, and it says, and it came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, Lie with me.

But he refused and said to his master's wife, Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

Here we have that word against God again, right? We saw the previous with the men of Sodom that they did not want to follow God, and they were against the Lord. But here on the other side, we see Joseph saying, Listen, I'm not having anything to do with this sinful behavior. You're married to another man. I'm not to touch you. I'm not to have anything to do with you.

If I did, I would actually be sinning against God, breaking his law, breaking his commandments.

And so, most definitely sin did occur prior to the Israelites' arrival at Mount Sinai, as did the understanding of right and wrong before God. So with the stage set that sin existed, and sin is the transgression of God's law, let's go through briefly each of the Ten Commandments, and we'll go through some more quickly than others, but I want to keep moving through so that we can finish in a timely fashion today. But let's look at the first commandment.

You shall have no other gods before God. Turn back to the little bit earlier, Genesis 17, in verse 1.

Genesis 17, in verse 1, we're looking here as we hop around through the early books of the Bible.

Abraham's life moved, I mean, he's moving towards the end of his life, and definitely towards the end of a life and modern day time. But God was still going to work with him. God still was introducing himself more and more to Abraham, and we see in Genesis 17, verse 1, when Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am Almighty God. That is the Hebrew word El Shaddai, which means all-sufficient one, God Almighty. He's saying, I am the Eternal, the One, the only. And he says, walk before me and be blameless. Be blameless. How can one walk before God and be blameless if they don't understand the laws that they are to walk with, the way that they are to operate? And we see that God is making sure that that Abraham understands that he is the Eternal God, the One God. And all through Genesis and all through the accounts of the Bible, we see God introducing himself to his people, and he invites them to walk with him and to be blameless. That's part of our calling, as well as God began working with us, and as we committed our lives. There is no doubt that God is the Eternal God, that he is the only God.

And there is no doubt that those in the book of Genesis knew this, that there is one God to be worshipped. And there's way too many scriptures for us to reference this aspect, but we see this very clearly early on in God's Word, that we should have no other gods before God, and many people were taught that. The second commandment, you shall not make or worship graven images.

Let's look at Genesis 35 in verse 1.

Genesis 35 in verse 1. This is the beginning, or early on, when God was continuing to work with Jacob. We know that some of Jacob's household had connections and beliefs in other gods, and they even had some idols that they had brought and retained in their own life. And Jacob sees the need for a clean-in-of-house as he continues and builds his relationship with God even stronger.

Notice Genesis 35 verse 1. Then God said to Jacob, Arise, and go to Bethel, and dwell there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.

And Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, Put away the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your garments. This was a cleansing. This was a cleaning house. Not only just physical idols that had to be put away and not brought along any further, but a cleansing of their mind, a cleansing of their selves to recognize, We're going in a new direction. We're going on a new path. These foreign gods that are among you, they got to be put away. Verse 3. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I'll make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and has been with me in the way which I have gone.

So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands. And in verse 9, we see this furthering of a relationship that Jacob and God made together. Then God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Padam, the ram, and he blessed him. There's a blessing that came along from the righteous behavior, the knowing right from wrong, as Jacob continued building his relationship with God. We see this as a continual theme throughout, again, the Bible, but even early on in Scripture, of not falling into idolatry, not having false worship in our lives. God is very specific on how one should worship him and how he should be honored. And so we see the second commandment was observed before Mount Sinai. Third commandment, you shall not take God's name in vain. For this one, we're going to go to the book of Job. It might seem a little bit further, a little bit interesting, because we're now in our Bibles that most of us have in our laps. We're well past Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus. We're now into almost the middle of the Old Testament, how it seems like it fits in our Bibles. But if you were to look at the historian accounts of Job, you would see that, based on his writing, based on what is being described here, based on where he lived and different understanding that we can take from Scripture. The book of Job chronologically, so if you start at the beginning of time of God working with man to the end of time, which is still in the future, right? If you looked at the Bible, Job would actually fit chronologically closer to around the Genesis timeline, maybe right at the end of Genesis before Exodus would begin.

We again, the Bibles we have in our lap, as we know, are not organized chronologically.

So you get to the kings, and a lot of the kings had different prophets, but those prophets we see later in the Bible. The book of Acts is a great one to consider because this is when the early church started and when Paul was going on his mission journeys, different places, and he would write letters when he was at a lot of these places. If we were to put the book of Acts in a chronological order, we'd have the entirety of the book of Acts, but then we'd have to start sliding in different letters of Paul as he was going on these different journeys, and as he wrote a letter to Ephesus, and as he wrote the letters to the church in Galatia. They would fit in between the chapters of Acts. I hope that makes sense to everybody. Well, in chronological order of the Old Testament, the book of Job is believed to fall somewhere either during the Genesis timeline or right after it, but before Exodus. And so this again would be before the law was given at Mount Sinai. And notice, as we consider the third commandment, you shall not take God's name in vain. Notice Job 1 in verse 1, right at the very beginning of the book of Job. There was a man in the land of us whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright. Notice the way that Job is being described here.

And one who feared God and shined evil. To fear God, to revere God, to have that awe of God, you have to understand who He is again. You have to be for Him. You have to understand the ways that He wants us to live our lives. And so here's Job being a man who feared God. And as we look at verse 5, just a few verses later, it says, So it was when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them. He's speaking of his sons here. He had these family dinners. He'd get them together. He said, And he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all, the number of his children. For Job said that it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. And it says, Thus Job did regularly.

He was concerned that his sons would sin. Without the law, there is no sin. So they had to have a right and wrong moral compass that was given to them by God, and that understanding that came from God. But notice, what if they cursed God? What if they said there is no God? What if they said, I don't know, these things aren't working out so well for me right now. Maybe God isn't here. Or what if they verbally just cursed God? And so Job would offer sacrifices to try to, that would be according to the number of burnt offerings for each of his children. And notice one chapter forward, Job 2 in verse 9. Job 2 in verse 9 it says, and this is after Job was struck by Satan with the painful boils. Notice what his wife says to him in verse 9, Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die. So she's encouraging him just to be done with God. Curse him.

Say there is no God. Blaspheme God and die. But notice what he says in verse 10, but he said to her, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? In all of this Job did not sin with his lips.

So for additional references here to this third commandment, Leviticus chapters 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22, each in a similar fashion, nor shall you profane the name of your God.

And so, of course, that's after Mount Sinai. That's after Exodus. But we see through Scripture again that this is a command that's been long standing well before the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai, and of course, well after. So let's look at the fourth commandment. Remember the Sabbath day, and to keep it holy. We know that in the beginning of God's word, the seventh day, or a day of rest, is one of the first principles of God we come across in Scripture.

For you just put in your notes, I'll just reference it for the sake of time. Genesis 2, verses 1 through 3, Thus the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished, and on the seventh day God ended or finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. He set it apart. He made it holy, because in it he rested from all of his work which God had created and made. And later, when God provided the manna to the Israelites, when they were in the wilderness approaching Mount Sinai, getting closer to their arrival there, he made sure they understood the importance of the Sabbath through how he fed them with the manna, but also made an example of how they should collect the manna and how they should treat the Sabbath. We see this in Exodus 16, in verse 22.

Exodus 16.

In verse 22.

In the seventh day, the Sabbath will be none.

Now, it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day together, but they found none.

And this brings us to our opening scripture that we looked at at the very beginning.

And the Lord said to Moses, How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?

Again, the powerful statement that these commandments, plural, these laws, plural, existed before this first time of God saying this to them. He says, See, for the Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day bread for two days, that every man remain in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day, so the people rested on the seventh day. And obviously, we're in Exodus 16, chapter 16, before Exodus 19, Exodus 20, when the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai.

The fifth commandment, Honor your father and your mother. We see very early again in scripture of this commandment being broken, when as God was Adam's father, and all we have to do is consider how Adam's decision in the garden, going against God, knowing right from wrong, knowing what he should do and what he shouldn't do, he did not honor his father when he ate the fruit of that forbidden tree. And with this decision came death and of course, the curses, other curses, along with it. To contrast this, we can look at Isaac obeying his father Abraham, when he was offered as a burnt offering. In doing so, he honored his father as God provided the offering of the real sacrifice.

This is one of those instances I still, at times, it's kind of an amazing story to consider and try to visualize. But here is his son. Here is Isaac obeying Abraham. And Isaac wasn't, as a lot of the pictures and stories depict, this most likely he was not a child. He was not someone that a parent could just overwhelm and force to do something. Because remember, he carried the wood up the mountain for his father. He bore that load as they walked up. And so he probably would have been a strapping young adult that was able and capable of looking out for himself and providing for himself and to submit and say to his father, I trust you and I trust God. So I will honor your command here. And if this is what it has to be, this is what it has to be. And so we see this value. We see the difference. And I mean, of course, as we go through Scripture, we see other children disobeying parents, the curses that come with that. We see the blessings of obedience, as we as we know, we see so often too. And so honoring your father and your mother would have been one of those commandments taught and understood before Mount Sinai. The sixth commandment, do not murder. We know that God made Adam and Eve husband and wife, and they had the first two children born on this earth, Cain and Abel. And while we don't know a lot about their upbringing, there's not a lot of Scriptures about little Cain or little Abel, what they did, what they didn't do, what God talked to them about, what their parents talked to them. We know this, they would have been raised to know God and his teachings and his law. And we can pull this from Scripture by looking at Genesis 4 and verse 3. Genesis 4 and verse 3.

My sermon hasn't put little Ian to sleep yet, at least, so that's a blessing.

Genesis 4 and verse 3. And as we read through this, recognize there's not a lot, again, shared here about their upbringing or what we have here. But notice this, because right at the very beginning of chapter 4 is when we're introduced into their children. It says in verse 3, In the process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and their fad, and the Lord respected Abel and his offering. But he did not respect Cain and his offering, and Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. So there's, we have pictured here, the command to bring an offering.

Where was that ever listed prior to this? But God had told and taught that this was something that they were to do. And why would there be a difference in different types? Wouldn't he just respect any offering that was brought unless there was a command of certain types were appropriate? Some were not. And again, verse 5, it says, And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. And so the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, notice sin, which is a transgression of God's law, lies at the door. So sin exists, or obviously sin existed, and also did God's law. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. Verse 8, Now Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother?

And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What have you done?

The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. And in the next few verses, God goes on to explain the curses, the punishments that would be up on Cain for his brother. And notice what Cain says in verse 13, My punishment is greater than I can bear. What Cain does not say in this passage and in this instance, Lord, you never told me it was wrong to kill someone.

I just put myself, like, again, what, as a kid, did I ever say that to my parents? Well, Mom, you never told me I wasn't allowed to do that. Wasn't allowed to jump off the roof of the garage into the backyard and never told me that. And they just, you've seen that look that the parents give when somebody makes that type of a statement. We don't see Cain questioning. We don't see Cain not understanding. If Cain wants to get out of this punishment, if he wants to avoid being in trouble with God, and if that was a viable truth of it, that I didn't realize that this wasn't something I should do. This would have been the perfect time to use that explanation or excuse, but he didn't say it because he knew it wasn't true. In fact, he got caught up in a lie just a little bit before when God said, the Lord said, Where is your brother? He goes, I don't know.

He knew right where he was at, and yet decided to, again, break God's laws.

Let's go with the seventh commandment. Do not commit adultery. We've already referenced Joseph, himself, avoiding adultery with his master's wife in Genesis chapter 39, but let's also look at a different account, Genesis 20 and verse 1.

This is going back to Abraham and his journey with his wife Sarah.

And out of fear, because Sarah was very beautiful and did not want anything to happen to her or to happen to him, they came up with this story about, well, we'll tell them that we're brother-sister instead of husband and wife. And notice how God reacts to this. Genesis 20 and verse 1.

And Abraham journeyed from there to the south and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur and stayed in Gerar. And now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, she is my sister, and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, Indeed, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife. But Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, Lord, will you slay a righteous nation also? Did he not say to me, she is my sister? And she even herself said, He is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands, I have done this. And God said to him in a dream, Yes, I know you have done this in the integrity of your heart, for I also withheld you from sinning against me.

So again, the reference to sin here, Therefore I did not let you touch her. Now therefore restore the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours. And verse 9, Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, What have you done to us? How have I offended you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done.

So who gave King Abimelech this wisdom about what should and should not, what ought to be done and what should not be done? Otherwise, other than knowing God's laws and His commandments, and in doing this, I mean, Abraham also sinned, knowing that he should tell the truth. He shouldn't bear false witness like he had done. And so we have not only to the Joseph account of holding and staying away from avoiding adultery, but we see that taking another's man's wife is a sin before God, a great sin, as Abimelech referenced here. Let's move to the eighth commandment, do not steal. It's the previous passage we just read of Abimelech, recognize it was wrong to steal another man's wife. Toward the end of Genesis, we would see Joseph brothers were accused of stealing the silver cup from their brother Joseph, even though Joseph had arranged for that cup to be placed in one of their bags. Stealing was obviously wrong. It was, and no one would deny, it was not showing love towards another person. It was morally and spiritually wrong before God. We see that in other accounts we could look at before Mount Sinai, and we see it all throughout Scripture.

It's not showing that kindness, that love, that respect. In fact, it's actually breaking another command often of coveting, wanting something that doesn't belong to you, something else that someone else has. And so we, through Scripture, and even before Mount Sinai, we can see the examples of not stealing were well understood and in place. Brings us to the ninth commandment, you shall not bear false witness, or you shall not lie. Let's go back to Genesis 3 in verse 1.

This is that great lie that Satan told Eve in the garden.

Genesis 3 in verse 1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. And then we get the great lie. The serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And after the account unfolds, and Adam also partakes of the fruit, we see in verse 13. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. She was lied to. She fell into the lie, she believed it, and she gave in and sinned. So the Lord God said to the serpent, And here we have the curses that would come out against Satan. Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. I'll put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, and he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

We can find many other accounts of lying and the consequences through Scripture. We looked at the one with Abraham. There's others through here of the damaging effects, the risk one takes early in God's Word. And so lying was one of those moral codes, but was also a spiritual command from God because of the consequences, because of the damage it does to fellow man. And so this command was also in place. And let's look at the final commandment, the tenth, which is, do not covet.

We know that Adam and Eve sinned when they coveted and desired the forbidden fruit.

Cain coveted the respect God showed Abel, which led him to kill his brother. We have referenced the story of Jacob, but we know that Jacob and Rebekah, his mother, sinned when they coveted Isaac, the father's blessing, for Jacob, and the blessing that should have gone to Esau. They remember Esau.

Jacob wanted to, or Isaac wanted to give Esau his blessing, and he asked him to go out in the field to bring back meat and to prepare food for his father. So while he was away from home, Jacob and his mother came up with this plan to trick the father. There was covetousness, even in this instance. And we see multiple times in Genesis when men coveted women and took them for themselves.

Covetousness is throughout the Bible and can be seen in many different variations, from greed, to jealousy, to stealing, to lusting for something that is not yours. It's such a harmful mindset that Moses' father-in-law shared advice about the character of men Moses should surround himself with. We find this account in Exodus 18, and we'll look at verse 13.

You consider these accounts of men sinning, men breaking God's laws. Covetousness seems to be one that almost is tied to so many of these other sins, so many of these other accounts we see. It's not just somebody lied or somebody stole, but then there's covetousness that comes and is connected there too. It seems like this is an underlying theme that just runs through. It is, and I think if we look at even today, we look at the society we're part of, how much covetousness continues to just run rampant in the lives of humanity. But notice Exodus 18. This is still prior to the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. And here we have Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, coming and visiting him, seeing his daughter, and kind of observing this group of people that Moses is leading through God's hand through the wilderness. And Jethro has kind of just taken it in, seeing it with his own eyes. In verse 13, it says, And so it was the next day that Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening. And so Jethro, his father-in-law, is witnessing this himself.

So when Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did for the people, he said, What is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit and all the people stand before you from morning until evening? So Moses went through and explained how he would have to judge these matters. They would bring these matters before him. Morning to night, he would make the decisions. Some of them would be easy things to make decisions. Some he'd have to weigh out and really think through.

And notice that his father-in-law says, This is not a good thing that you are doing all by yourself, that it will surely wear yourself out. Notice what he says in verse 18 and verse 20, because he says, Surround yourself with some additional men who can help. Distribute part of this load. There are some men who can make these decisions for these easy matters. And when it rises to a tough decision or something big, then you can weigh in on that. And so Moses agreed. And so as he starts to consider these men, his father-in-law gives him advice on what kind of men he should surround himself with, what kind of men should serve in this role. And we see this in verse 20. And he says, And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws. So if there's any questions that statutes and laws existed before the giving of the Ten Commandments, this is another one of the proofs in Exodus 18 verse 20, because we don't see Moses saying, What statutes? What laws? And notice, he says, And show them the way in which they must walk. Walk righteously, right? Walk the way that they're supposed to walk and the work that they must do. Moreover, verse 21, you shall select from the people able men, such as fear God. That's a good one to have. Check. Men of truth. Yep, we want people who are going to hold by the truth, tell the truth, always defend the truth. Check. And notice the third one, hating covetousness. If you just read through that, that one kind of just slides in. You almost don't even realize the value of hating covetousness, along with honoring God's word of truth, fearing God, walking in the statutes and law, all those things. Like, if you and I were going to go and select able-bodied people to serve alongside of, to make judgment decisions, all these things, you would be like, Oh, yeah, know the statutes and laws. Check again. Walk worthy. Yes, check. Fear God. Check. Be men of truth. Absolutely. Avoid and hating covetousness.

Covetousness is such a destructive sin. It's such a destructive attitude and mindset that even Jethro, his father-in-law, said, this is one of the requirements. If you're going to put people around you, good quality people, you've got to find those who hate covetousness, those who are not going to be jealous, those who are not going to want something that's not theirs, those who are not going to see someone else get something great, a prize, an award, a promotion, and then be like, I wish I had that. Now I'm jealous. Now I'm not. Now I'm dissatisfied with my own life. I'm dissatisfied with what God has blessed me and given me in my life because someone else.

But it's so easy to fall into this one. And so Jethro is telling Moses, pick these men that have all these attributes that you would want, fear in God, being men of truth, but also make sure they hate covetousness because it's such a poison to one's mind and to one's decisions and one's judgment. And so again, not only do we see the statutes and the laws referenced here prior to Mount Sinai, but we obviously see covetousness being one that people were to hate and to avoid.

So as we wrap up, the Bible shows that obviously the Ten Commandments did not originate with Moses or in his time, nor were they in any way limited only to a certain group of people, the Jews, which many will say today, right? We observe the Jewish Sabbath or the Jewish Holy Day. No, these are God's Sabbath. These are God's Holy Days. These are not Jewish commandments. These are God's commandments. These commandments were in effect long before Moses or people even known from the tribe of Judah or the Jews existed. These commandments, these teachings, these laws are the foundation that show us how to love God and also how to love our fellow man. I'd like to close and then just share a couple additional comments, but close by looking in Scripture back to the book of Job, Job 31 and verse 1. It was interesting as I was studying the subject and I was looking at Genesis and going into Job at times. I came across this passage in Job chapter 31, and as I read through different passages, parts of it, I was kind of taken back at how many commandments were alluded to. Many of them not straight out referenced or not straight out said as a commandment, but notice how Job describes the way that he lived his life. Sorry, Job's disappeared from my Bible. I think it's still here. Job 31 and verse 1. And notice this is towards the end of the account of Job. This is after his friends had given him the advice. And he is making a defense of himself before God in this, but kind of ignore that part, but just focus on how he describes the life that he was living, the approach that he took the life, the way that he tried to treat others.

And as we go through this, notice how many commandments we could reference here in just one book of Job, again, prior to the giving of the law and the Ten Commandments. Notice this, Job 31 verse 1. He goes, I made an agreement with my eyes not to look at a young woman in a way that would make me want her, obviously, not to commit adultery, not to covet another man's wife or property, or someone that was not his. Verse 2, what does God have? What does God above have for us?

How does God, all powerful, the Almighty, how should I repay people from his home high in heaven, recognizing there is a God, there is only one God? Notice verse 3. He sends trouble to the wicked and disaster to those who do wrong. God is the one who knows what I do, and he sees every step I take, so he can see right from wrong. I have not lied to anyone. I have never tried to cheat people.

Let me just, I just realized I'm reading from a different translation than you probably have.

It's the easy to read version. I did enjoy how this flowed. So my apologies if you think you're a totally wrong book. I should have told you that from the get-go. It is Job 31, but I am reading from the easy to read version. But verse 5, he says, I have not lied to anyone. I've never tried to cheat people. If God would use accurate scales, he would know that I am innocent. So he knew right from wrong. He knew stealing was a sin. He knew coveting and taking something that wasn't his, again. If I've ever stepped off the right path, if my eyes led my heart to do evil, if my hands are dirty with sin, so he knows what sin is, then let others eat what I have planted. Let my crops be pulled up by the roots. If I have desired another woman or waited at my neighbor's door to sin with his wife, then let my wife serve someone else and let other men sleep with her.

To do such a thing would be shameful. A sin, again, that must be punished. Notice verse 12, sin, such sin is like a fire that burns until it destroys everything. It would completely ruin my life's work. In these next few verses, he goes through his life work, how he treated other people, how he respected and wanted and valued what they brought to the things they did for him, and his mindset that he walked with God in. Verse 13, if I refuse to be fair to my slaves when they have a complaint against me, then what will I do when I must face God? What will I say when he asks me to explain what I did? The one who made me in my mother's womb also made them. God shaped all of us inside our mothers. I've never refused to help the poor. I've always given gave widows what they needed. I've never been selfish with my food. I shared what I have, what I had with orphans, and he goes on the next few verses more about how he treated his neighbor. But notice verse 23, but I didn't do any of these bad things. I feared God's punishment too much. His majesty, his greatness, his goodness scares me. I have never trusted in riches. I have never even said to pure gold, you are my hope. So he knew it wasn't going to be his hope didn't lie in gold or stone or idols, anything that would be a false worship. Verse 25, I have been wealthy, but that didn't make me proud. I earned a lot of money, but that is not what made me happy. I have never worshiped the bright sun or the beautiful moon. I was never foolish enough to worship the sun and the moon.

This is also a sin. So recognizing that having a false idol, worshiping another God other than the one God is a sin, that must be punished. If I had worshiped them, I would have been unfaithful to God all-powerful. Verse 29, I've never been happy when my enemies were destroyed. I've never laughed at my enemies when bad things happen to them. I've never let my mouth sin by cursing my enemies and wishing for them to die again. If you hate somebody in your heart, it's like murder.

If you want bad things to happen to someone, it would be similar to murder.

And so breaking that sixth commandment. It's just amazing, just in one chapter reading through it, just how many without referencing a commandment, how many times that Job talked about how he carried himself, the way that he did things, and how many script how many commandments we could circle.

In just one chapter of Job, talking about the way that he led his wife and the righteous way that he tried to walk with God. It's just found that just interesting to just read through that one chapter and see how many commandments could be referenced just from one book of Job.

As we finish, God's laws and commandments are vital to the one who wants to follow after Jesus.

This is why after Jesus Christ returns to establish his glorious kingdom on earth, Isaiah 2 verse 3 tells us that many people shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths, as we know as the Millennial Scripture here, for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word from the Lord of Jerusalem.

And so we know this isn't just a past time that the law was given. This isn't just a present time that we're to live in accordance to God's laws and commandments, the righteous way that we're to walk.

It's a way that will be taught to all of the world in a future time to come, when they will know their God, they will know right from wrong, they will know sin and transgression, they'll also know the love of the God who gave them the laws and commandments, and they will live according to these laws.